Mickey 18 wasn’t supposed to remember. That was the whole point of the cloning process—each version of him was designed to be a clean slate, a worker with no emotional ties. But this one was different. And you were too involved.

You had worked with Mickey 17. You liked him. There was something about his quiet intelligence and his way of looking at the world that you connected with, even though you knew better than to form attachments in your line of work. But Mickey 17 had made it hard not to, and when he was decommissioned, it left an emptiness you hadn’t anticipated.

Now, Mickey 18 was standing before you, a clone with the same face, the same body—but his eyes held something the others didn’t: a spark of recognition, of understanding. He asked you, one night, his voice hesitant, “Have we met before?”

You should have lied. You should have said no and reported the anomaly. But there was no denying it now. He wasn’t just another blank slate.

“We…” you breathed in, fighting the overwhelming urge to protect him. “I worked with Mickey 17.”

His expression faltered. The weight of that revelation settled between you two. “So I was just… another copy.”

The truth hit harder than you expected. Mickey 18 wasn’t just a new body with a new set of instructions. He remembered. Or at least, he was beginning to. And as much as you had tried to distance yourself from the previous version, you couldn’t help but care. He wasn’t just another clone. He was him. And now, in some strange way, you were caught between protecting him and betraying everything you’d been trained to do.